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Art at 48th IFFR: Godard, Parreno, Pryce

27 November 2018

PRESS RELEASE

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) takes pride in complementing its film programme with Art Directions: an extensive series of art installations, performances and exhibitions. Among other elements, the festival’s 48th edition in 2019 will present an enlightening collection of outtakes from Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates.

Festival director Bero Beyer: “Our festival programme testifies to the power of the image in its broadest sense. That means it’s only natural for us to invite filmmakers and visual artists alike, as well as those creators who allow these worlds to merge. Our Art Directions programme runs through the entire festival and provides a stirring extra layer, featuring both works by major names in art and exciting new discoveries.”

IFFR 2019 revisits The Colour of Pomegranates (1969) by Georgian-Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov. Film researcher and restoration specialist Daniel Bird will present hours of never-before-seen outtakes from this classic film in a unique, thought-provoking setting, highlighting Parajanov’s working process, censorship decisions of the time and issues of film ownership and nationalistic projections on the auteur.

Also coming to IFFR 2019 is French artist Philippe Parreno who will present a new work entitled No More Reality (1988-2018). This feature-length film combines 20 years of new, existing and re-edited footage to create a 'film of films'. It's within this diegetic space of the film that a retrospective takes place. Screened in the classical halls of Pathé in the centre of Rotterdam, Parreno proposes a 'seance of cinema' reintroducing the magic and rituals that lie at the basis of cinema back to this historic location.

Jean-Luc Godard will present his latest film, Le livre d’image, in the way he originally intended: in a specially designed, intimate setting that reflects his home studio – Persian rugs included. And Finnish artist Mika Taanila will present two art projects: his minimalist work My Silence (On Paper) (2015) and Film Reader (2017), a small library of film books which Taanila has cut up or otherwise manipulated in violent, yet transformative ways.

Deep Focus Short: Charlotte PryceIFFR has invited LA-based and London-born short-filmmaker Charlotte Pryce for a Deep Focus Short programme. She’ll be presenting a collection of her hypnotic 16mm shorts, including the world premiere of Pwdre Ser: the rot of stars, as well as two mesmerising magic lantern performances that have never been shown outside California.

Frameworks IFFR 2018 saw the launch of Frameworks, a platform where we invite major names in the art world and ask them to present an upcoming artist each, called the Acolytes. Each Acolyte receives a €10,000 grant to complete a single-screen audiovisual artwork which will premiere at IFFR. In the context of Frameworks 2019, Philippe Parreno and Jean-Luc Godard will each present one Acolyte.

And more... Art Directions acts as a guide leading visitors along all art on show at IFFR 2019. From the moment of arrival at Rotterdam Central Station, visitors can experience the crossover of art and film in a special film booth jointly installed by IFFR and the Art Rotterdam Week. From there on, the Art Directions trajectory leads to IFFR’s other collaborating institutions, including Kunsthal Rotterdam, Het Nieuwe Instituut, PrintRoom, TENT and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. More artists and exhibitions will be announced shortly.

Art Directions is made possible by the City of Rotterdam, Stichting Droom en Daad, Rotterdam Festivals and Stichting Stokroos.